Re: Update

Hi Harry and Page,
Great minds...I was thinking about you this morning as I read
responses to Lou Oma's notice regarding Order of Selection. Several
WCB members have replied to my original post, which I can't seem to
find, and mostly they are asking, "What can we do?"
I've included my response to one person. Other than that, we are
doing fine. We still have no idea where we will be concerning Cathy's
mom. We still trade off with Cathy's sister, Marlene, making sure one
of the daughters visit each day. But we do have more time for such
activities, since we dropped Kitsap County, and since our budget was
cut 25%. We did a presentation yesterday in Port Townsend. Heaven
Gregg, with I&A, heads a group of social service providers. About 15
or so listened to our presentation, and exchanged information. Great
community outreach.
Still trying to get a long weekend to see our daughter and
son-in-law's new home in Ellensburg. They moved in on Christmas Day,
and we've not made it over to "oo and ahh".
We did spend the week of Sept. 17-21 on a short cruise with our
friends, Ken and Mary Hopkins. Mary is failing fast, but still felt
well enough to enjoy our time together. It was a bitter/sweet time.
Good friends are hard to watch suffer.
Anyway, hope you guys are going great guns, and looking out for each
other. Here's the note I posted on WCB List, to Heather:

Well Heather, it seems to me that you have answered your own question
regarding "what do we do?" Your testimony is a great beginning. Hang
onto it and use it every time you have the opportunity. Let your two
state representatives read it, and your state senator, and the
governor. Tell it to anyone who will stop and listen. When you have
time, find groups looking for speakers, and take your testimony to
them.
Talk with your Chapter members and see if you can draft letters from
the Chapter, sending them to those state and federal elected
officials. At state convention of the WCB, draft a resolution calling
for strong action by WCB, and present it to the Resolutions Committee
to be worked up into a final draft.
And don't forget to write a letter or an email to the Department of
Services for the Blind, telling them your concerns, and thanking them
for their great assistance in your life and in the lives of others
that you know.
We don't have the dollars to hire people to keep our concerns before
congress or the legislature, so we have to do it as a volunteer army.
We are a small slice of the total population, and so often are
overlooked...the hidden minority, so we need to seek support from
other organizations with greater influence than ours.
Cathy and I spoke to a group of service providers from a wide variety
of social service agencies and organizations, yesterday. We blind
people are not alone. Social Service Providers are being squeezed
financially, across our county. So I can only believe that the same
is going on in your county. And it's happening across our state and
nation. We, the Blind, could add a new twist to that old adage, The
Blind Leading The Blind. We could become, "The Blind Leading The
American People".
I have always felt that the WCB List could become a place where we
could exchange ideas and opinions, as well as sharing information that
would help us understand why Social Services are so often neglected by
the very government put in place to serve "the people".
But I think that even before we can do that, we need to learn to talk
to one another. Too often strong opinions lead to people behaving
like Kindergartners. Our organization's leaders become concerned that
such discussions will lead to division, rather than bringing us
together. So instead of working toward a set of rules that unites us
in conversation, we avoid discussing the very subjects that are
critical to our future. And to the future of those people who will
become blind in the future.
It's interesting to me. The very need for open discussion is avoided
through fear that it will have a negative impact, even though doing
nothing will also have a negative impact. Teaching ourselves how to
get control over our future will not be an easy task, but if we are
going to build a brighter future for the Blind, it is a task we will
need to tackle.

Carl Jarvis
*******

Here's Heather's note to me:

Hello Carl,
Thank you so much for your heartfelt words of wisdom. I too am very
concerned about our future. As a current client of DSB I can honestly
say I would never
have been able to accomplish the things I have in the last year
without them. And although I am not directly affected by this decision
today, this still
is of great concern to me. If I would have been put on a waiting list
when I truly needed these services a year ago, my entire life would be
on hold. I
would not have known how to learn the skills to survive independently
as a newly blind, single person in a brand new environment with no
connections, no
job and a lifetime of career skills that were no longer usable to me.
Instead I am now able to be extremely independent I own and live alone
in my own
home, I cook for myself , clean, pay my bills, have learned Braille
and white cane skills, take care of my pet dog, and have an active
social life in a
new community. I have learned computer  and iphone skills and am soon
going to be training these same skills for people who are blind or
visually impaired.
The fact that people who need these services will now be on a waiting
list for an unknown amount of time when time is quite frankly very
crucial  in many
situations like my own, is a travesty. So my real question to Carl and
all of our WCB family is what do we do next? How do we continue the
work that was
done by those who have started it before us, how do we make them proud
and know they really did make a difference? Where do we begin? Hoping
to hear more
discussion on this issue !

Heather Meares
*******

I did find my original post in response to Lou Oma's messages:

> Dear Friends,
> Below I have pasted the release from Director Lou Oma Durand,
> informing us of the Department's implementation of Order of Selection.
> Order of Selection, to a blind adult seeking the training and
> assistance to become employed, is called Hope Deferred.
> As I read the message, I felt a great weight on my heart.  The thought
> of all the years of labor, the commitment of blind men and women
> giving of their time, their energy  and their money in order to secure
> a strong state agency that would always be there for future
> generations of blind people, being brought to its knees.  What have we
> come to?  A waiting list...take a number and get in line!  Is this
> what we dreamed of?  Our president cries out across the Land that we
> are in "Good times", and that the recession is behind us.  If so, how
> is it that we are now experiencing austerity in those most critical
> programs under girding the hopes and the dreams and the very lives of
> our state's blind citizens?
> The hard truth is that we, the blind, have dropped the ball.
> Back in the 70's we built a strong blind movement demanding an agency
> that would meet the needs of the blind.  We said that a separate
> agency would give us, the consumers, a strong say in the activities of
> that agency.  When other states were seeing their blind services being
> shoved under Umbrella Agencies, and some were going into Order of
> Selection, we were building a strong movement, winning  our
> independence, our separate state agency.
> And now, are we really going to sit quietly by and tell future blind
> people that we couldn't stand strong for them?  Bad enough that we are
> letting down all those who fought so long and hard.  Fortunately, many
> of those who fought on the front lines are no longer living.  They
> will never know that their hard efforts are being eroded.  Ed Foscue
> and Phyllis Foscue, Sue Ammeter, Wes Osborne and so many, many  others
> who died believing that they had been a part of something grand,
> something that was of lasting value.
> My friends, we all know that our fate is in our own hands.  We are in
> hard times, regardless of what we are told.  But it is not hard times
> financially.  Our nation has plenty of money to pay for the world's
> largest and deadliest military machine in history.  The issue facing
> us is our government's priorities.
> We can quibble over why our government is sending us the signal that
> we are not of any great value, but we can certainly notice that we are
> not the ones living in posh estates.
> It's time again for us to mount a strong movement and call together
> our brightest members and advisors.  It's time we show one another
> that we do believe in ourselves.
> Carl Jarvis
>

On 10/4/18, Harry Whiting <harrywhiting@comcast.net> wrote:
> Have not heard from you for a while. Hope all is well.
>
> Harry and Page
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>